


Play That Song - The Deleted Scenes

by Rednaelo



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Deleted Scenes, M/M, No Coherency, trash heap, unedited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 03:50:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11050728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rednaelo/pseuds/Rednaelo
Summary: A while back I promised that I'd upload what I affectionately referred to as my "trash heap" for PTS and this is it.  It has not been edited, it is not in any particular order, it's literally just a pile of writing that was starting to happen and then got cut in the end for what the fic is now.  This is for my readers who are curious about my writing process, just like the story, or want to see what could've been.  Content is unrated by my own choice; please refer to the original fic if you want a comprehensive list of tags and warnings.





	Play That Song - The Deleted Scenes

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to comment if you like? I barely remember what's in here so I might not know what you're referring to but if there's anything you wanna talk about, I'll talk about it with you. :3
> 
> -Bec

“I’ve got soda if you’d like it,” Tim offers, and Rhys gives him a slanty-sort of grin. 

“Still workin’ on this water bottle,” he says, shaking it to emphasize.  He’s had it tucked up in the crook of his arm the whole time, like it’s a comfort object.  “Got any pizza rolls?”

Tim beams at him, falling apart into giggles before he can stop himself.

“Not now but I think with you as my contract holder, I can get someone to bring me some.”

Rhys grins back but slips into a bit of pensive silence while Tim flicks open the door to his fridge to pull out what little food he does have: a plastic netter bag of those little, wax-covered cheese wheels and a gorgeously crisp apple that he’s been saving.  Now’s a good a time as any.  He puts both of these on the mattress next to Rhys.

“So, you said before that the cult has you guys trapped here,” Rhys says, digging in the bag for one of the cheese snacks.  “You don’t think they’ll be mad when they find out that I’m alive?”

“They’ll be plenty mad but there’s nothing they can do about it now,” Tim tells him.  The truth of it all feels like a furnace of vindication and might behind his ribs.  Caging it back is like swallowing down a scream but Tim focuses on how his stretched-out legs are bumping against Rhys’ boot and how Rhys isn’t focusing on anything but what Tim is saying.  Other than trying to pick the plastic wrapping off his little cheese wheel.  But that’s endearing so it’s fine. “The world could collectively decide to nuke every inch of you and they wouldn’t succeed.”

Rhys puts the whole cheese wheel in his mouth, twiddling the bright red wax between his fingers and then he tucks it in one cheek so he can say, “Wow.”

“Yeah, so, don’t worry about them either,” Tim assures.  “I’ll make sure they feed you while we’re here.  Because, now that I’m strengthened by our contract, I can break us out of here.”

“Oh, thank god.”

Tim smiles.  Rhys licks at his bottom lip and his cheeks pink up.

“I guess I should start coming up with cover stories,” Rhys says.  “Cuz I’m sure people will start having questions if you’re gonna be with me the rest of…forever, I guess, it’s gonna be.”

“It’s definitely something to think about,” Tim agrees. Rhys nods and takes a bite out of the apple and that’s the moment when the hatch opens up again.  It’s unmistakable: a screech of rusting metal and then a noise like a bomb dropping.  Rhys has gone stock still, his knees pulled up to his chest and the apple gripped too tight.  Tim gets to his feet, giving Rhys an encouraging smile. 

“Don’t worry, it’s gonna be alright,” he says.  “There’s nothing he can do to hurt you now.”

It won’t take long for Jack to reach them.  Tim makes things easier by taking a seat right next to Rhys on the bed and wrapping an arm around his shoulders, pulling him close. 

“I don’t feel hungry anymore,” Rhys says quietly, though the apple ends up at his lips again and he takes small, nervous bites of it.

“It’s okay,” Tim says again.  He takes the apple out of Rhys’ hands and snaps his own bite off.  Dang, that was worth saving.  “Gotta see if I can get more of these for us,” he says to Rhys, giving the fruit back and Rhys manages a weak smile for him.  “It’s good, right?”

“Yeah,” Rhys says.  He’s still glancing around the nearby heaps of garbage, trying to figure where Jack’s approach point is.  Tim’s distraction tactics aren’t working.  Well, the flirty ones aren’t anyway.  Tim didn’t think he mistook Rhys earlier, blushing like a summer strawberry at the mere mention of their prospective touching.  But, well, Tim’s not as much of a smooth operator as some people are.  Seduction wasn’t one of the traits he picked up from Jack.

He _has_ picked up a few things from Rhys, however. 

“Hey, let’s fix this,” Tim says, wrapping his fingers gently around Rhys’ forearm.  Jack’s getting closer; Tim can smell him.  He’s sure Jack can smell Rhys too.  Rhys himself is looking down at his bite wound – red and raw – and then glancing offside, Jack’s impending arrival taking precedence over everything.  Tim gets Rhys’ attention to snap back like a rubber band when he carefully cups his hand over the bite.

“Hsss, ouch,” Rhys gasps and Tim mumbles an apology, his palm scorching hot as the magic taps into the reservoir that is his Contract and heals.  Rhys withdraws his hand looks about ready to blast off in a panic but when he finds himself mended, he halts.  He looks back up at Tim, who gives him a small smile.

“See, it works,” Tim encourages.  “You can trust me.  I’ll protect you.”

Rhys’ shoulders relax.  His spine curves forward again and his feet touch the floor.  He bumps up against Tim’s side and Tim pats Rhys on the shoulder.

“Thanks, that was something special,” Rhys says and Tim can hear him smiling.

“Well, ain’t this cute?”

Like a drop of blood falling into the ocean, the momentary peace dilutes to nothing; Rhys goes still against Tim’s side.

“What’d they have you do this time?” Tim asks Jack, casual as you please, tugging Rhys a little more bodily into himself.

“Ahh, you know they only call me out when they need someone dead.”

“Oh, so you _did_ get to eat.”

“Lucky for you and your little sack of sweetmeats right there,” Jack sneers.  He takes a few steps closer.  Rhys is trembling.  “He’s a cutie, isn’t he?  Are you gonna tell him you love him before I pluck his teeth out one by one?”

“Lay off, Jack,” Tim shifts his arm, deliberately letting his sleeve pull so the contract circle around his wrist shows. It’s glowing a faint blue right now: an indication that Tim is fulfilling his side of the bargain by protecting Rhys.  Rhys, who is curled up against his chest, his nose against Tim’s neck, breathing shaky-quietly while he wrings his fingers in Tim’s shirt.

“Oh, you have gotta be fucking kidding me!” Jack yells, throwing his hands up only to rake them through his own hair and pull in frustration.  “You fucking contracted him?  You goddamn moron!”

“Too late to do anything about it now,” Tim sneers back.  For a moment Jack is standing there, breathtakingly angry with his eyes shining as bright as lit neon. 

Rhys screams when Tim hauls him up and pushes him against the wall.  It happens before human synapses can even make sense of the motion: Jack phasing through dimensions to strike and Tim slipping just as quickly to put himself between Rhys and Jack, hands slammed to the wall like a barrier to shield his contractor.  Rhys stares up at Tim, panting, his eyes pale with fear.

Tim gives him what he hopes comes off as a cool grin, one of those smiles the heroes in action movies always give.

“You okay?” he asks. 

Rhys doesn’t even have the space to answer because then there’s Jack.  Jack, kneeling on the mattress behind Tim, pressing himself shoulder to thigh against Tim and hooking his chin over Tim’s shoulder.

“Yeah, you doin’ okay, meatbag?” Jack asks Rhys, who clams up and tightens his whole body.  “How you likin’ Timmy here so far?  He been good to you for the half hour that you’ve whored yourself out to him?”

“Jack,” Tim warns him, his arms taut with keeping Rhys contained within them.

“Hope you like him enough to really stick to your end of whatever dumbass bargain you assholes made because, here’s the kicker that he probably didn’t inform you of.” Jack turns his faces so his nose skims against Tim’s cheek and jaw, nuzzling up close to his ear.  When Jack whispers, it’s for Rhys, but he lets the words fall sweetly into Tim’s ear.  “This one belongs to me.”  Rhys is frozen where he’s curled up but he hasn’t looked away once. 

“Yeah,” Jack goes on to say, his hands now sliding up Tim’s thighs to grip possessively at his hips, “you went and put a ring on what I already claimed.”  And Tim knows that if he breaks his guard now, Jack will go for Rhys so he grits his teeth, turns away, and does nothing to stop Jack from pulling up his shirt to show the Twin Shadow seal over his heart.  “See that?”  Jack runs sweet, scratching fingers over the circle; Rhys follows the motion like his life is going to depend on it.  “That’s me.  Means li’l Tim-Tams here can’t go anywhere without me knowing exactly where he is.  So, if you thought that tying yourself to him was gonna get rid of me, think again.”  
  
Jack smears his hands over Tim’s chest and down his stomach, sliding his fingers beneath the waistband of his pants by a few inches.  Rhys’ face is touched with pink; his ears are burning red beneath his tawny colored hair.  He flicks his focus back and forth between Jack, his hands, and Tim’s face, where his head is bent in shame, stifling the warring sensations of discomfort and arousal.

“You can’t take what belongs to me, cupcake,” Jack mockingly chides Rhys. His hips roll forward and Tim steels himself against the shove so it won’t crowd Rhys worse than this situation already has.  “And Timmy is alllll mine, inside and out.”

The glow of Tim’s circle flares and Tim reacts before Jack has even finished thinking about switching his touch from Tim to Rhys.  Jack goes flying.  His ratty sneakers squeak across the dirty cement to grind himself to a halt and he’s crouched low, eyes wild.

“Oh-ho, what’s this now?” he says, as if he doesn’t understand exactly what happened.

“Leave Rhys out of this, Jack,” Tim says.  He takes a defensive stance in front of the bed.  No matter that his clothes are still rumpled up and his skin is still blooming pink from Jack’s touch.  No matter.  Tim bares his fangs and 

 “No need to get defensive, Jack,” Tim tells him.  The back of his neck is hot and Jack’s breath hisses against it familiarly.  “No one’s gonna take me from you.”

“You’re goddamn right,” Jack growls.  He snags Tim’s jaw in one hand and gives him a puncturing kiss, blood spilling down Tim’s chin.  Jack licks it up again and grips the juncture between Tim’s thigh and his crotch in a way that’s unmistakably possessive.  “Just make sure your pet dipshit knows that I’m not fucking around here.”

Jack leaves but he leaves with his hands in his pockets, grumbling to himself in irritation.  Tim watches over his shoulder until Jack has disappeared into the ‘bathroom’ and then he finally withdraws from the bed to give Rhys some air.

“Oh my god, are you okay?” is the first thing Rhys says, rasping, voice cracking, scooting to the edge of the bed to try and get closer.

“Pffheh, yeah, I’m fine,” Tim says, sitting on the floor again.  He tugs on a loose bit of notebook paper from this stack and uses it to mop up most of the drips coming from his mouth.  “So…yeah, I’m…really sorry I didn’t mention before but

 

 

Rhys

Timothy takes off his jacket and there’s blood soaking down the back of his heather gray t-shirt in a big, browning line.  The skin at the back of his neck is pink-puckered and already healed.  Rhys stares at it while the jacket gets slung over the back of the chair next to Timothy’s bed.

“You have rapid healing,” Rhys points out what Timothy already knows and feels like an idiot but Tim just nods at him with an easy smile.

“Being a demon does have some perks,” he says.  “Immortality being one of them.  I mean, I say it’s a perk but it’ll probably get old a few years after everyone I know and love is dead and I’m not.”

“Wow, gloomy,” Rhys comments in a way that fully intended sarcasm but really wasn’t when it came out.  Timothy reaches over and ruffles Rhys’ hair and it feels like someone pouring liquid sunshine down into Rhys’ stomach.  His eyes flutter closed and he sighs. 

Obviously, it’s an effect of the contract, the feeling he gets whenever he and Timothy touch.  But….  Well, the thing about it is that it feels like that swoop when Rhys would play on the swings as a child or ride roller coasters, right at the drop.  And it feels like looking across the room in eighth grade math and seeing the boy he had a crush on smiling as he stared out the window.  And it feels like drinking hot chocolate too quickly and a little like that unnamable comfort and exhaustion that swarms Rhys as he snuggles underneath his blankets after a long day, knowing he gets to sleep in tomorrow.

All that and how kind Timothy’s hands are when he touches Rhys, how his blue-and-green eyes look at Rhys like he’s too good to be true…. 

“Think we can both fit up there?” Timothy asks Rhys, tilting his head to one side to indicate the bed where Rhys is sitting.  Rhys flushes hot and feels a little swoony when a swipe of pink washes out the freckles scattering across Timothy’s cheeks. 

“Y-yeah, if you want,” Rhys says.

“Do you want?”

Yes, he really wants. Rhys just nods and scoots back so there’s enough room for Timothy to clamber up next to him on the mattress.  It’s big enough for the both of them but only just.  Timothy shifts his shoulders a bit and has his back to Rhys.

“I’m thinking that like this,” Timothy whispers—Rhys thinks about going to slumber parties as a kid—“I can keep you between me and the wall.  You’ll be safe on both sides and I can keep an eye out for Jack.”

“You think he’ll still try to come after me?” Rhys asks, scooching along the mattress to lay down.  He stares at the bloodstain on Timothy’s shirt and his knees touch the back of Timothy’s thighs.  The sunshine fills him up sweetly, like the first bite of that apple Timothy had given him.  Rhys closes his eyes and sighs.  Fear of Jack lists away, forgotten.

“No,” Timothy says.  It had taken him a while, the silence stretched out between Rhys’ question and the answer.  “No, this is just….  It’s better like this.”

Rhys hides his smile against Timothy’s shoulder.  It really is better like this.  Rhys is captured in a room full of random garbage with two demons, one of which tried to eat him, and he’s never felt contentment like this. 

Sleep doesn’t settle on him, even with Timothy being still as possible and not saying a word.  Rhys’ mind is alive with the day that he’s had and the life that’s ahead of him and how tomorrow is a huge question mark that he doesn’t have an inkling of an answer to.

 

Timothy smells like dirt. 

Timothy smells like the scent of the air after it’s been raining in late spring and the sun’s starting to go down.

Timothy smells like the last fumes coming from the empty perfume bottles on mom’s vanity, kept because of the jewels they made beneath her mirror. 

Timothy smells like a sweater that’s been worn and slept in and taken off only for Rhys to find it and wear it himself because it smells like being hugged. 

Timothy smells like old blood washed away with water from a warped plastic bottle.  [Tie in] Rhys doesn’t think he’s ever fallen in love before but he’s starting to wonder if he’s trying to fall in love with Timothy.  [Seems to be going pretty well so far.]  He and Rhys sleep on Timothy’s bed—just big enough for the two of them, somehow—and Rhys spoons up against him and when he closes his eyes and smells the warm skin between Timothy’s shoulders, he’s not here. He’s in a cozy studio apartment in some suburban American Dream neighborhood, snoozing on a Saturday afternoon.  He has a hand resting on Timothy’s side and his forehead against the place where Jack bit him (it’s gone now, there isn’t even a scar) and Rhys is full of magic.

It’s the feeling that spills from the top of his head all the way down his spine and into his stomach, stoking his heartbeat until it feels like a hummingbird in his chest.  And it’s like that every time.  This is how Rhys wakes up; he feels the soothing hum of Timothy’s voice as he has a low-murmured conversation with Jack, who’s lounging on his own bed at the opposite side of the garage.

“The terms are too passive,” Timothy is saying.  “The only way to even tap into that kind of power would be to put Rhys in danger.”

“So throw the kid out in front,” Jack says back, mouth full.  Rhys sniffs.  Doesn’t smell like blood…probably just junk food.  There’s a soft shhf-shhf-shhf of Timothy shaking his head as it rests against the mattress.  “Make them come after him, it’s a no-brainer.”

“I can’t do that,” Timothy argues, still gently.  “That goes against the terms.  And you can’t do that either.”

“Then _get him_ to do it,” Jack says, annoyed.

“No,” Timothy says.  “That’s not the contract.  [something else]”

“You’re fine just being stuck here forever.”

“Been doing pretty well so far, Jack, I’m sure I can manage a while longer.”

Jack [groans].  Rhys pulls himself tighter against Timothy’s back. But the tension unravels like a plucked thread when Timothy’s hand pulls Rhys’ to rest over his stomach and keeps it there.  The idea of being trapped forever isn’t so bad when Rhys feels like this….  It’s a faraway, daunting thing but Timothy is there between Rhys and forever and maybe so long as that’s true, it’ll be alright.

“See, I think you’re forgetting that our beloved overlords didn’t sign up for an extra mouth to feed,” Jack says.  “They’re not gonna give you enough food to keep your new boyfriend alive.  Your sit-back-and-fuck-all attitude was fine when it was just you and me, baby, but it ain’t like that anymore.”

Timothy goes very still.  Rhys feels small behind those broad shoulders.

“You don’t care about Rhys, you’re just trying to get me to do what you want,” Timothy says. 

“Not like I’m lying to you.”

“I’m not using Rhys as bait.”

And that’s that, apparently. 

Nighttime in this place (Tim calls it “the Hellhole”) is just the sounds of the neon signs and Timothy and Jack talking to each other.  That’s what they do every night when Rhys sleeps against Timothy’s back.  They talk quietly.  Mostly about the work they do, though recently it’s been about how to utilize Tim and Rhys’ contract to break out.  Which culminated in this most recent conversation about how they’re not going to utilize Tim and Rhys’ contract at all.

Rhys wants to argue that he should get a say in this but honestly, his say is that he doesn’t want to be used as bait either.  [What Jack said] is a crawling fear in the bottom of his stomach, though.  He’s only been here for three days.  The cult that had thrown him in here isn’t aware that he’s still alive and he has no idea what’s going to happen when they find out he is. 

Tim’s hand covering his own is a shelter.  It’s enough to help coax Rhys back to sleep, for now.

 

‘Tasking’ is what Timothy calls his occasional day job.

“It’s when the cult asks us to do favors for them,” he explained to Rhys earlier today as he pulled his jacket on.  “They invoke a Subjugation Spell and we complete whatever they want.”

“That’s it?”

“It only works if you already have a demon fleshlocked in the mortal realm and contained with like a dozen different magical restraints, so it’s a lot more difficult than just that.  But, well….”

“Yeah, they seemed to have taken care of those bits,” Rhys said blandly.

“It’s a living,” Tim answered.  Rhys had given him a half-smirk.  “I’ll probably be back in a couple hours, depending on what they want from me.  Poke around if you like; be careful.”

“And Jack?” Rhys had asked.  “How can you protect me from him if you’re not here?”

And Timothy had told Rhys that no matter where he was physically, he would always be able to keep Rhys safe.

To that end, Rhys is putting a lot of faith in what he can’t see as he sits on Timothy’s bed, legs drawn up under his chin, staring at Jack who’s out in the junkyard, stripping his clothes off and squatting in front of a displaced bathtub full of water.

Jesus Christ.

Jack—and by extension, Timothy, Rhys is keen to remind himself—is tall and toned and has shoulders that look like they could bench-press Rhys’ body weight and a waist that is tight and narrow.  His ass is flat as a cutting board but those thighs….  Rhys stares at the sheen of fluorescence that highlights Jacks quadriceps and the tail end of a thought goes slithering through his mind.

_…could crush my head between those...._

Jack’s skin is glow-golden and absolutely perfect, not blemished by a single scar, mark, tattoo, or any other abnormality that could indicate to any mere mortal that he was a demon.  Well, he does have fangs but that is what it is.  The articulation of the muscles in his back is the demonstrative epitome of human anatomy.  And all he’s doing is scrubbing his one set of clothes with an old box of borax he dug up from somewhere.  Jack is like a work of art in kinetic perfection.  He doesn’t even sweat….

“Like what you see, chewtoy?” Jack cackles at Rhys without looking at him.

Rhys doesn’t doubt for a single second that regardless of Jack’s state of dress, and no matter how frustratingly perfect he might look, he will have no problem pouncing and mauling Rhys to death. 

“You couldn’t do that anywhere else?” Rhys snaps, maybe a little more high-pitched than he intended, conscious at being caught.

“Well, sure I could, but right here’s the only place that could wash my clothes _and_ entertain myself,” Jack says easily.  He drops his pants into the bathtub and then turns around, _buck fucking naked_ , and puts his hands on his hips, grinning.  “Wanna see me swing my dick around like a helicopter?”

Rhys gets to his feet and leaves the garage because he doesn’t have to put up with this.  Jack is literally roaring with laughter.  There’s a thump that sounds like he might’ve fallen over from laughing so hard.  Rhys scrubs his hands angrily over the blush splotching his face and stomps off in a random direction.

Look, it’s not like his life was boring before.  He had a nice nine-to-five at Hyperion.  It was desk-jockeying but it paid the bills.  He had a couple of good friends he could chill with on weekends.  His apartment was a cramped little studio but he made it homey; it had a huge TV and enough video games to turn him into a hermit for the rest of his life.

Not _boring_.  Stable. 

(Boring.)

Rhys sighs and stares up at the hatch because that’s where he’s found himself.  Just like he’s found himself contracted to a demon who may or not be demon-married to a demon who decides that since he can’t eat Rhys, he’s going to get naked in front of him and threaten to swing his penis around like a helicopter.

Rhys puts his head in one hand because this is seriously what his life is right now.  Not at all stable and the complete opposite of boring.  He never approved this exchange.  He wants to speak to a manager.

“You’ll wanna stay away from there, kiddo.”  Jack’s voice comes rolling and bouncing over the heaps of trash and Rhys whips his head around to glare at it.  “They pop open that hatch and see your dumb ass, they’ll haul you out and lock you up.”

“You don’t know that,” Rhys grumbles under his breath.

“I know everything, dipshit,” Jack yells.  Rhys startles and stumbles and collides with a large decorative vase, falling ass-first into it like an idiot.  “Make yourself useful and look for a pen for Tim Tams because I sure as shit ain’t doin’ it.”

Rhys dislodges himself from the vase and spends a moment upending it so that he never has the chance to have that problem again.  It’s not like he wants to do what Jack tells him, but looking for a pen will keep him busy.  And it’s for Timothy, so he has reasonable justification. If Rhys happens to turn from the hatch and walk to the exact opposite corner of the bunker, it’s only because he feels intuitively that it’d be a better place to look for a pen.

It’s dirty, bizarre work, picking through the trash and junk to try and find something that should be so common as a pen.  Rhys has done more tedious things sitting at his cubicle.  This isn’t so bad.  Except for the fact that there’s no air conditioning, let alone any decent circulation.  After an hour and a half of single-minded searching, Rhys has found two pens and a water-stained cardboard box of mechanical pencils.  He also has sweat stains in his armpits and that nasty, claustrophobic sensation of his shirt wrinkling up under his arms and sticking to his back.

Lucky thing he knows where the shower is.

There’s a voice lifting over the crests of piles detritus and it sounds like Jack’s but it could be Timothy’s (it’s not obnoxiously loud, after all).  Rhys lifts his head a little and floats on the hope.  He rounds the corner of the garage and there’s Jack, still naked—Rhys rolls his eyes—and sitting on the edge of the now empty bathtub.  But Timothy is standing not far from him, hands in the pockets of his jacket.  Rhys approaches him eagerly, hoping he doesn’t stink too bad.

There’s someone else.  A man in a black cloak looms a few feet in front of Jack and Tim.  Rhys halts.  The hood shifts and Rhys is staring into what he thinks is supposed to be a pair of eyes but merely looks like splashes of violet plasma over a shadowed face.  Holy fucking shit.

“This him?” the man asks.  His voice sounds...normal?  At least he isn’t like, speaking in tongues or with an added echo that implies he might be like possessed or something.  Rhys still takes a step back. 

“Yes, so I’d appreciate your continued cooperation,” Timothy says very congenially.  Maybe it’s just because Rhys can see the tension flexing in Timothy’s neck but that particular placation sounded like a sweetly offered threat.  Rhys swallows and wars with wanting to go to Timothy’s side and wanting to run and find that van again.  Eyes like alien lightning flash; Rhys sees the sharp cut of a frown beneath it. 

The noise is heavy and wet and unfamiliar so Rhys doesn’t register what it is until the man in the cloak is falling off of Timothy’s fist, crumpling to the ground in a swelling puddle of blood.

Jack is laughing, surprised and gleeful.  Timothy sighs and flicks blood off his hand before looking over his shoulder at Rhys.

“I’m sorry,” he says.  Rhys watches the blood flow and soak into the spaces between Jack’s bare toes.

“Shit, Timmy, what the fuck!” Jack crows, still giddy, _giggling_. 

“At least this will teach the rest of them to leave you alone,” Timothy says to Rhys.

“I-I don’t—” Rhys doesn’t even know how to form the thought aloud.  Timothy gives a crooked, sad smile and says,

“It was just easier.”

“Hah…ha, okay, yeah.  Cool.  I’m gonna barf,” Rhys says. 

He at least manages to get behind the garage before he pukes but Jack is still laughing (why is he always laughing) and Rhys keeps thinking about blood dripping off of Jack’s toes as he sat naked on the edge of the bathtub.  And Timothy’s hand hesitating to return to his jacket pocket, smeared dark.

“Oh, god,” Rhys heaves.  He’d punched right through that guy’s sternum….  Rhys coughs up bile and tries to breathe over his gag-reflex spasming.

“I dunno if you know this,” Jack’s voice comes lilting from behind Rhys, “but, ah, you’re contracted to a _demon_.”

“Wow,” Rhys says, and that’s all he can say because then his body starts hiccupping violently. 

“I know, right?” Jack says.  “So you keep it in mind while you two have your little snuggle-fucks that, Timmy?  He eats people.  And you’re his forever.”

So ends the unsolicited encouragement from Jack while Rhys hunches over a puddle of sour stomach juice.  When Rhys turns around, there’s bloody footprints on the ground and he can distantly hear Timothy asking if Jack is hungry.

Rhys is still holding onto the pens and pencils.  He pushes himself up and

 

Home is called the Hellhole, according to Timothy—that’s his name for it.  A football-field-sized steel box that has running water, sewage, electricity (piss poor air circulation) and a hoard of garbage that was stuffed in here for god knows what reason.  This is Rhys’ home for the foreseeable future.

In the middle-ish is the garage where Timothy and Jack (it’s actually Handsome Jack, apparently?) live.  And behind the garage is the

 

Thing is that even when Timothy curses Jack, he’s still smiles.  They have history together.  Rhys knows about a little of it, just what he managed to convince Tim to murmur to him a few nights ago, when Jack was out working for the cult and Rhys couldn’t sleep.  It was hard to find the right stillness to rest when earlier that day, Timothy had punched one of the cultists through the sternum and burst his heart for even _intending_ to remove Rhys from the bunker, lock him up, and probably kill him at a later date.

Rhys had a panic attack and threw up and Jack had laughed and Timothy had only been sorry that he’d scared Rhys and not at all sorry about eating the cultist while Rhys took a shower to try and get the blood and vomit off of himself.

Anyway, Timothy spilling some of his dirty secrets about having sex with Jack was enough to take Rhys’ mind off of the carnage and the reality that he was going to be living with a murdering, man-eating demon for the rest of his life.   They lay in bed together, nose to nose, Rhys’ hands tucked under his chin and his knee bumping against Timothy’s shin and they blushed at each other.  (Timothy’s blushing washes out his freckles and he has so many of them, like the milky-way scattered across his nose and cheeks and forehead and chin.)

“He’s good with his hands,” Timothy admitted gently and Rhys had bitten his bottom lip hard enough to split the first layer of skin.

The imagery of it was nice and all—like, Handsome Jack is literally _handsome_ and Timothy looks just like him, so of course the fantasy checks out—but the fact is Jack is a complete dick.

 

Timothy kills the first cult member who tries to take Rhys from the bunker and they learn not to try again.  And, yes, of course, they will make sure to send human food more frequently so Rhys can keep being alive, absolutely, no trouble.

“See, Jack is like their god,” Timothy explains to Rhys as he fills up the displaced bathtub near the garage with water.  “And I’m his…favored concubine? I guess.  So much as they worship him, my priorities are still important.  So, yeah, no worries, they’ll bring you food.”

“This whole thing is still fucking weird,” Rhys informs Timothy, who just laughs and shakes a bit of borox into the tub. 

“Yeah, it’s nuts,” he agrees.  “It’s both a good and terrible thing that the Eridians know their shit.  Because that means they understand the weight of a contract but that level of comprehension has all the shitty subjugation spells attached to it.”

“Let me guess,” Rhys says while he peels off his week-old socks.  Ew.  “The only reason why none of them have contracted with Jack is because he doesn’t want to.”

“He hates them,” Timothy says.

“Yep.  Called it.”

“Well, I’m sure you can sympathize with the feeling.”

“Just a tad.”

Timothy strips to his boxer-briefs and drops all of his clothes into the tub.  Rhys tosses his socks and shirt in along with them.

There’s this mark on Timothy’s chest—this isn’t the first time Rhys has seen it—which apparently is either the cause of or side effect of whatever magic turned him from being a human to being a demonic doppelganger of Handsome Jack.  Handsome Jack being Jack’s full title: a haphazard translation from some Eridian cthulhu-speak that Timothy offered him.

“They used to call him a succubus back in the day,” Timothy had said.

“Not an incubus?”

“Eh, either or. He’s still an asshole.” 

So he said, but he was still smiling fondly when the insult dropped. 

“Here, you can wear these.” 

Rhys blinks himself out of his navel-gazing to see Timothy standing there, arms full of some clean clothes.  It’s laundry day.  And Rhys hasn’t had deodorant for a week which is only his problem because, as he has learned, demon sweat doesn’t smell grody like human sweat does.  Laundry day is definitely necessary at this point. 

“Thanks,” he says, taking the clothes from Timothy and retreating to the cover of the garage to change into them.  Timothy crouches over the tub and swirls its contents around a little bit, giving Rhys privacy, which is nice.  Rhys keeps watching him, wondering if maybe he’ll try to sneak a peek.  Maybe halfway hoping that he will…. 

But he doesn’t because Timothy does things like sleep on the floor so Rhys can have his bed.  He also brings Rhys water bottles when Rhys has panic attacks and throws up because Timothy just murdered a man by punching a hole into his sternum.   That’s just the kind of gentleman he is.

(“I don’t….  Why did you do that?”

“He was going to take you.  He was willing to harm you if needbe.”

“You killed him.”

“I do that, Rhys, I kill people and eat them.”)

Rhys supposes that Timothy will have the rest of his life to sneak glances at Rhys while he’s changing.  Surely it’ll happen at some point.

All of the dirty (bloody, sweaty, bile-splattered) clothes go into the tub with Timothy’s and Rhys sits down next to him while Timothy scrubs more detergent into a yellowish stain.

“Gonna give me a hand?” Timothy asks with a short laugh.

“Oh, sorry.”  Rhys unfolds and eases up to his knees.  “I just don’t know how this works; I’m used to washing machines.”

“Well, we gotta start somewhere,” Timothy says, and puts the water-stained box of soap powder into Rhy’s hands.  “Just dump some on the nasty bits and rub it on itself, that’ll get the worst out.”

Rhys pushes up the sleeves on the tattered yellow sweater he’s wearing (it smells like Timothy) and washes his clothes the old fashioned way. 

The water is lukewarm and filmy with soap. Rhys feels like he has a pretty good excuse to bump his hip and shoulder gently against Timothy’s every now and then.  Sometimes their hands brush together while they work.  When he glances sideways, Rhys can see blush washing out Timothy’s freckles.

Which reminds him….

“So, ah, you never told me about Jack,” Rhys says, trying to affect a casual tone but Timothy snorts at the abrupt subject and, welp, that didn’t work. 

Jack has been…peripheral for most of the time.  There-but-not.  Sometimes napping in the garage and sometimes the sound of the shower running out back.  The cult calls on him for favors almost every day and that has him out of the bunker more often than not. 

“You mean I never told you about fucking Jack,” Timothy says.

“Y-Yeah.”

Timothy smiles and it’s a grin that’s playful and warm and there’s a surging impulse in Rhys that just wants to _kiss_ him.  Ooh, boy.  He dodges that bullet and refocuses on rubbing out the old bloodstain on his sleeve.

“I mean,” Timothy starts off, then gives himself a few seconds to further collect his thoughts, “pffft, he’s like a beast.  Good with his hands? And either he’s got some sort of oral fixation or he just can’t keep his mind off his next meal.”

“Then I’m guessing you’ve been bitten…quite a lot,” Rhys says.  Timothy’s wrist is slick beneath the water when Rhys skates his fingers over the contract circle.  He can’t help it, it’s like taking a long, deep breath before falling asleep.

“Every time,” Timothy chuckles.  “I bit him back once but that did the opposite of deter him.”

The hatch creaks open and bangs shut and Jack yells something that Rhys doesn’t understand but has Timothy clicking his tongue in annoyance.

“I’m busy!” he yells back in Jack’s general direction

 

Rhys

Day six of Rhys’ life in the Hellhole has him sitting in the corner of Timothy’s mattress, reading one of his old journals.

“This is probably the one you’ll like the most,” is what Timothy had said when he offered it to Rhys.  He gave him a knowing grin and Rhys had smirked back, given him the eyebrows, which didn’t actually lessen how he was blushing.  “It’ll keep you entertained while I’m gone.”

‘Tasking’ was what Timothy called it when the cult members summoned him or Jack to do their bidding.  “The day-job,” he had said.  And followed-up by telling Rhys to not be afraid of Jack while he was gone.  “I can keep you safe, no matter what.”

Jack has been…mostly peripheral while Rhys has been here.  Sometimes snoozing on his bed or prowling around the boundary of the bunker, occupying himself with whatever.  He tasks more frequently than Timothy does.  Right now he’s….

Rhys blinks and scowls at the view outside the dim lamplight of the garage.

Jack is crouched over by a displaced clawfoot bathtub a few yards away, filling it with water from a garden hose and stripping his clothes off.  It’s ‘nighttime’ so Rhys can’t make him out with perfect clarity but he doesn’t really need to because in fifteen seconds, Jack is _buck fucking naked_ and shaking a box of borox into the tub.

Rhys draws his knees up to his chest on the mattress and pulls the worn-and-floppy college-ruled notebook over his face because….  Because, well, he doesn’t need to see that!  What the hell is wrong with that guy?  Jack starts hum-sing-whistling some nonsense song and Rhys snorts, focusing his eyes resolutely on the typefont-neat handwriting in front of him. 

_is glow-golden and absolutely perfect, not blemished by a single scar, mark, tattoo, or any other abnormality that could indicate to any mere mortal that he was a demon.  Well, he does have fangs but that is what it is.  When I asked him about our differences (the Twin Shadow seal, my freckles, the scar beneath his mask) he told me that, and I quote, “human spells are all fucked up because humans don’t know shit.”  I miss being me, looking like me.  But he’s so beautiful that looking like him isn’t so terrible.  Everything else is terrible and Jack is terrible but at least he’s vain enough that when he looks at me, he’s pleased with what he sees and that’s kind of terrible too.  Thrilling and terrible._

Reading Timothy’s journal is nice.  Rhys can hear his voice in his head as he follows along the lines of old thoughts.  The entries aren’t dated normally but counted from a starting point of Timothy’s recollection and he didn’t start writing them down until about two months in, from what he told Rhys.  Curiosity has Rhys wondering if he’ll get to thumb through any of the other journals Timothy has filled.  He lets the notebook rest in his lap and when he lifts his head, Jack is bent over the tub, scrubbing at his clothing.

Still friggin’ naked. 

In the dark-and-neon that is the night of this place, Jack is almost like a dream.  The song he’s humming is half-familiar and Rhys tries to place it, focus elsewhere while his eyes train on the reddish sheen of Jack’s bare skin.  From his broad, rolling shoulders to his tight-and-toned waist and, well, his ass might be as flat as a cutting board but Rhys locks onto those Venusian dimples right above it and forgets himself.

“Like what you see, chewtoy?” Jack cackles at Rhys, startling him.

Rhys doesn’t doubt for a single second that regardless of Jack’s state of dress, he will have no problem pouncing and mauling Rhys to death.  And while that should make him fearsome, he’s actually just an asshole and Rhys hates him.

“You couldn’t do that anywhere else?” Rhys snaps, maybe a little more high-pitched than he intended, conscious at being caught.

“Well, sure I could, but right here’s the only place that could wash my clothes _and_ entertain myself,” Jack says easily.  He drops his pants back into the bathtub and then turns around and puts his hands on his hips, grinning.  “Wanna see me swing my dick around like a helicopter?”

“Awwwughhh!” Rhys cries and throws himself sideways covering his head with his hands and Jack just laughs and laughs.

“Holy shit, you should see your face, I didn’t think humans could even turn that color, holy friggin’ crap!”  All peppered with giggles and breathless heaves of laughter. 

“You’re such a _douche_ ,” Rhys groans.  His ears are burning under his hands.

“Oh, come on, that was hilarious,” Jack says. 

“For _you_.”

“That’s all that matters, kiddo.”

Rhys grumbles and pulls the notebook back over to himself, facing the wall now so he doesn’t have to put up with Jack or his helicopter dick even incidentally.  He picks another passage to distract himself with again.

There’s a screech of the hatch opening and then slamming shut again which has Rhys smiling to himself because Timothy’s home, thank god for that.  Jack growls; it almost sounds like he’s laughing again.

“Fucking finally,” he mutters.  And then he just takes off.  Rhys sits up, watching him run and disappear into the dark.  It doesn’t click until a moment later, there’s a sharp, horrified wail piercing through the shadows.  Rhys’ heart turns to stone and plummets into his stomach.

“Oh, no….”

They’ve dropped another sacrifice down into the hole.

“Um, okay…okay,” Rhys mutters and looks around the garage in a panic.  Okay, so….  So Jack is going to find this person and kill them and eat them.  Rhys is going to….  Hide.  Yep, Rhys is going to make himself very small and not be on anyone’s radar.  He gets out of bed, stumbling, and flicks the lamp off and throws himself back into the corner.

This is too much like the first night.  Keeping absolutely still in the darkness.  Listening for any and every sound.  Jack’s laughter is so present; it keeps reverberating, reaching back to Rhys and dragging him to that fear.  The only difference is the screaming isn’t his own now.  Rhys clamps his teeth tight onto his tongue to keep himself from whimpering.

There’s a scuffle drawing nearer.  Labored panting and the cacophony of a bunch of empty paint cans falling from their stack follow the footsteps.  Whoever it is crashes, headlong, into one of the piles, crying out at the last second.  Rhys can see it from here, about twenty meters out: a few miscellaneous bits of junk topple from their mound and roll away.  The person is stuck, Rhys realizes.  Their cries are desperate and struggling and pained. 

Rhys puts his head in his hands when Jack’s laughter comes to a satisfied halt beneath pleas of, “No, please, please, don’t hurt me, I’ll do anything, please, don’t!”

“Nah,” Jack says, quietly, but it’s loud enough that Rhys can hear.  “Last time I played with my food, I went hungry.”

There’s a scream.  And then there’s quiet.

Rhys tries not to but listens intently on the wet, heavy noises of Jack’s mouth.

For a long moment, nothing happens.  Rhys sits, crammed into the corner of the garage with his arms around his knees, not feeling the mattress beneath his bare feet or the weight of his own body in his arms.  The darkness is constant but has walls; Rhys keeps still so he can’t feel the boundary suffocating him. 

[extend this; make more time pass]

“Hey.”

A light floods Rhys’ field of vision and he makes himself look up.  Jack is standing there, by the lamp in the garage.  He’s actually dressed now (sort of, he’s got jeans on, that’s it) and there’s blood all over him.  Rhys can smell it, it’s so strong, how did he not even notice before….  He covers his mouth and nose with one hand and turns his face away, trying to force the bile in his stomach back down.

“Oh, don’t give me that bullshit,” Jack groans and wanders off.  “You’re married to a demon, now,” he yells over his shoulder, “you’re gonna have to get used to the blood!”

“Fuck you,” Rhys answers weakly.  He falls onto his side and stares at the wet, red footprints that Jack has left behind on the garage floor.  That’s all he sees until someone crouches into his field of view and gently places a hand against the side of Rhys’ neck.

Rhys’ hands relax from their tight grip.  His jaw is aching from how tensely he’s been holding it.  Timothy is smiling at him with a line of worry between his eyebrows but his fingers at the nape of Rhys’ neck are feeding him starlight and helping his lungs inflate all the way.

“Hey, you’re still kickin’ around in there,” Timothy says, his words light as down feathers. 

“You’re back,” Rhys says.

“Scooch over for me?”

Rhys shifts and wiggles backwards until Timothy can slip into the space left on the mattress.  His arm goes over Rhys’ shoulders and his foot hooks around Rhys’ ankle.  Rhys takes a deep breath, engorging himself on Timothy’s scent.  It’s…a mishmash of so many wonderful things.  He’d like to try writing them down just to figure them all out.  Maybe…he’ll ask if he can borrow one of Timothy’s notebooks.

“Tomorrow, sure you can,” Timothy says.

Rhys goes, “Mmh-hmm,” and falls asleep with Timothy’s gentleness settled over him, softer than the softest blanket.

 

Timothy is trying to wash away the bloodstain when Rhys finds him the next day.

“Jack’s still sleeping,” Timothy says when Rhys comes up behind him and stops a few feet short.  “Big meal always does that to him.  Probably won’t bother us for a while longer.”  The dirty ground is smeared with burgundy-brown and there’s splatters of it across obnoxiously colored plastic kitchen appliances and lawn furniture that are piled up on each other.

“You know, you don’t have to bother with that,” Rhys tells Timothy, “if you’re just doing it for my sake.”

“Well I wouldn’t if I were just doing it for your sake,” Timothy says with a smile slipped beneath his words in a way that obviously means that he’s teasing.  Rhys takes another breath and doesn’t think he can smell the blood anymore.  “I don’t like having kills so close to the garage.  Makes us cranky in the end, the scent of it.  Especially when we start getting hungry again.”  Timothy stands up and picks up his plastic beach bucket that’s been patched up with duct tape and gives Rhys a gentle pat on the shoulder.

The touch is enough to let more of the high-shouldered tension that Rhys has been hanging onto spool away.

“I think Jack was right, though,” Rhys admits in a mumble as he follows Tim around the back of the garage.

“Uh-oh,” Tim says.

“Yeah,” Rhys sighs.  “He said I needed to get used to the blood.  You know, since you and I are….  Well, since we’re contracted, even though that wasn’t the word he used.”

“I can hear it already,” Timothy says.  He takes the bucket over to the little drainage grate that’s beneath the shower and dumps it out, the water running a mucky reddish-brown.  Rhys doesn’t look at it.

“But he’s right,” Rhys says again.  “I mean….  Okay, it actually really freaks me out that you eat people, but you do, that’s just what you have to do to live.”  Timothy smiles sadly at Rhys’ eagerness to justify this carnage.  An old, worn-out smile that silently says that Timothy has told himself these words before: it doesn’t do anything to alleviate the guilt.  Rhys presses on.  “I don’t have to like it, but it’s not gonna do me any favors if I don’t learn to live with it.”

“Certainly are big thoughts to have,” Timothy says. 

Rhys wrings his hands together and stares at them.  There is no undoing what has been done.  Undoubtedly, Rhys will have to make more sacrifices in his life, including adjustments to his own morality, to what he has to tolerate.  Let no one say that he could not be adaptive when needbe.

“I already know it’s gonna suck and I’m gonna puke a more than once but I’m gonna try to get over it,” Rhys tells Timothy.  His steely determination gives a little beneath Timothy’s sweet, sweet smile.  “It, uh, it’s a little easier,” Rhys adds, more gently now, “when I think about you like…holding me when I felt like nothing.  Or, doing things like cleaning up blood so I don’t have to see it when I wake up.”

“I’m glad I can help,” Timothy tells him.

Rhys laughs a little because his heart is fluttering up in his throat and his cheeks feel hot.  Not even two feet away from him, Timothy’s freckles are all washed out from blushing, his blue-green eyes lingering on Rhys for just a moment before darting off somewhere else.  Rhys swallows, decides to be bold, and reaches for Timothy’s hand.

Timothy sighs—slowly, smiling—and Rhys weaves their fingers together, sinking into the sunshine that pours into him.

“That’s still amazing,” Rhys says.

“Think it’ll always be like that?” Timothy asks him.  He swings their hands back and forth a little bit. 

“I think you would know better than I would.” 

Timothy is watching their hands with a smile on his lips like he’s watching someone blow bubbles for the first time: his lips are closed (Rhys is starting to think he does that on purpose) but his eyes are all wide and shiny.

“

Jack

Lesson learned.  Though he never thought he’d get schooled by a has-been snack.  And maybe that’s what irks Jack the most about it: there it is—he, _Rhys_ , what the fuck ever—wrapped up in Timmy’s clutching arms.  Mouth open, drooling on Timmy’s pillow like an idiot. 

That was supposed to be dinner.

The hatch bangs closed and Jack tilts his head towards it, listening.  Timothy has one eye peering over chewtoy’s head, watching Jack, hearing the telltale noises in the distance.  Gasping, panting….  Grunts and whimpers of pain.  Whisper-babbling.  This one hasn’t bothered to start yelling just yet.  Maybe still out of breath; Jack hopes they landed on their back.

He slips from his bed with his lips pulled back from his teeth and Timmy just rolls his eyes at the warning. He presses his face against the back of his bed-warmer’s neck and goes back to sleep.  Good, Jack thinks, and pulls his coat and sweater and shirt off, throwing them on the bed.  After costing him his last meal, Timmy isn’t in any way to be taking the next one for himself, the asshole.

Jack thinks about killing him.  It’s an old thought, a comfortable mantle to wrap around his mind while Jack takes silent, effortless steps through the haven of trash that is his enclosure.  Jack thinks about crushing Timmy’s throat under his heel. He thinks about snapping Timmy’s pelvic bones with his own hands, without even breaking the skin.  He thinks about Timmy screaming and crying and a few steps away, Lunch is trying to catch its breath.  Jack thinks about holding Timmy by the neck then dropping him from a great height.

Too bad nothing like that would kill little Tim Tams.  What a missed opportunity.

There’s no use in making a game of this one.  Jack is starving.  He slips out from behind a slat of tin roofing and severs the human’s spine in one quick motion, killing it instantly. Jack crouches over the corpse and plunges his hand into its stomach to start plucking the tenderest bits out. 

It’s been….  Fuck, who knows how long it’s been, Timmy probably knows, Jack sure as hell doesn’t keep track.  It’s been long enough.  Timmy got himself a pet and enough time has passed that they’re not pussyfooting around each other anymore.  Used to be that Timmy slept on the floor and the pet slept on Timmy’s bed because they couldn’t even friggin’ look at each other without doing twin impressions of tomatoes.  But then they got over themselves and started be even more attached at the hip than Jack thought was possible.

They lay all over each other but they probably haven’t fucked once.  Jack snorts and swallows an eyeball whole and doubts those assholes have even kissed.  There’s blood soaking in between his toes.  It’s stupid to take perfectly good food and then lock it up in a box so you can protect it forever without even eating it.  Timmy’s a dumbass. 

The constant mechanical drone of the overhead lights suddenly chokes out when nighttime kicks in.  The neon is still present in faraway hums here and there.  Jack blinks a few times—mortal flesh is a pain in the ass to work with, still, after all these years—and slows his chewing. 

Friggin’ dumbass couldn’t have made a contract that would’ve actually been useful.  He picked some sort of passive ability that only benefits the chewtoy and doesn’t do squat to actually get them out of here.  Jack would say that he’s given up on trying to break the shackling spells that the cult has over him.  There’s no use trying to destroy a prison that keeps growing back; maybe other mortals would find it impressive that a bullet can pass through Jack’s brain and he’ll still be walking and talking like nothing happened a few seconds later.  Jack found it infuriating.  Damn thing hurt like hell.

It takes a good hour or so for all the meat to be peeled off them bones and by the time Jack’s done, there’s blood all down his chest, covering his arms, under his claws, wetting the hem of his jeans.  He leaves the skeleton there, cartilage and tendons still stringed in a couple places; maybe Precious will find it later and piss himself.

Jack wanders back to the garage and Timmy is looking up from his bed, staring at Jack.  Jack lifts an eyebrow at him.  Timmy blinks slowly, eyes skating over every bloodstain.  His eyes are glowing softly in the dark.

“Get off your ass next time and get your own,” Jack tells him.  “And, you know, actually eat it.”

“Yeah, you got it, Jack,” Timmy says, smiling and turning away and burying himself back into his armful of idiot.  Jack watches him.  He holds the kid all tensely, like if he lets go something bad is gonna happen.  Jack’s face is all screwed up in baffled annoyance and after Timmy gives this really pathetic sigh, he groans and rolls his eyes.

“The hell’s the matter with you, huh?” he asks.  The blood’s all sticky on his skin and he was going to wash it off but now he’s just standing by his bed with his hands on his hips, watching Timmy clutch his mortal pet like a lifeline.  Droolfactory is still keeping up production, friggin’ unconscious and clueless.

“I’m trying to sleep, Jack,” Timmy mutter-mumbles.

“Then fucking sleep.”

That twiggy thing that Timmy’s got himself wrapped around probably isn’t too comfy to sleep on but there he is, doing it anyway. Whatever. 

Jack gets the garden hose and starts filling up the displaced clawfoot bathtub that’s sitting out in front of the garage.  It’s not ever a quarter-way filled when Timmy comes up behind Jack, breathing like he’s about to puke.

“What,” Jack grunts.

Shaking fingers touch his arm and wrap weakly around his wrist, tugging.  Jack looks over his shoulder, his muscles tensing to snatch his hand back.  Before he decides to follow-through, Timothy is stepping closer into Jack’s space, bringing Jack’s fingers up to his lips and licking the blood that’s still drying.  His eyes glow like chemical fires when he closes his lips around Jack’s middle and ring finger and sucks on them like he’s trying to deepthroat Jack’s hand.  The hose makes a distorted splashing sound when it falls into the tub.

“Wow, princess, feelin’ a little thirsty, are we?” Jack says, turning his whole body towards Timmy and pressing his palm close when a hot little tongue goes trailing towards his wrist.  “Or hungry,” Jack adds when he notices that those little puppy fangs scraping over his skin aren’t actually breaking skin, but just trying to make the blood-harvesting easier.  “Maybe ask me nicely next time and I’ll save you a bite.”

Timmy’s eyes flash up and stare at Jack with wordless want, still glowing like neon rings, the pressure of his pheromones soaking the air and filling Jack’s lungs. 

“You can’t eat me, Tim Tams,” Jack reminds him, reaching out to pet his hair.  “I mean, I invented that whole seduce-you-into-being-my-food thing so it’s not really gonna work here.”

“God, shut up,” Timmy groans.

There have been a lot of times that Jack has kissed Timmy.  It’s a human thing – kissing is – but it’s one of those ways that they show vulnerability and hunger and greed all at once.  Something like that Jack can get behind.  It’s a good segway to fucking.  And eating, too, if he’s kissing a mortal. 

Kissing Timmy is weird-good.  Timmy who looks like him and can bite him back with teeth that will actually hurt and Timmy who could eat Jack if he really wanted to and sometimes he pretends like he wants to.  Like right now, he’s trying really hard.  He’s biting at Jack tongue with his sharp little fangs (they’re like milk teeth compared to the maw Jack boasts) and holding Jack’s face like he can eat him starting from his mouth and working outwards, licking away whatever blood is still under Jack’s tongue.

Truth is that Timmy will stop in a few seconds no matter how starving he is.

“You better try to catch the next sucker who falls down here, sweetie pie,” Jack says, breathing it hot into Timmy’s open mouth.  “You keep up this hunger, you’re gonna eat your virgin over there.  Then you’ll really be sorry.”

“I’m not gonna eat him,” Timmy growls and that’s cute.  Jack leans in and bites his jaw and breaks the skin.  Timmy bleeds and Jack licks it up, listening to him whimper and growl through it. 

“Timothy?”

Jack lifts his head from the trail of blood on Timmy’s neck and watches Twiggy rub his eyes and roll over, squinting into the darkness.  There’s a noise coming out of Timmy’s mouth that sounds like anguish and adoration and suddenly Jack’s arms are empty.  He watches Timmy lower himself onto the bed, covering the boy’s body with his own and start kissing his neck, his face.  In the dark, Jack can see the stamps of blood Timmy is leaving behind but that mortal idiot is just gasping and squirming and saying useless things like, “Oh!” and, “Timothy, what—” and, “That’s…oh, God….”

And Timmy just says, “This okay?”

“Wow,” Jack says.  The kid makes a squeaking noise and jolts like he wants to run away but Timmy’s latched to his neck like a leech now so he’s not going anywhere.  “Can’t believe I got dropped for some scrawny beanpole.  Not that it’ll last long; you fuck him while you’re hungry like that, you’ll end up eating him.”

“I’m not gonna eat him,” Timmy repeats, growling the words against that unguarded throat, and his little pet makes a whimpering noise that’s part fear, part boner and Jack sneers at them both.

“You’re ‘bout two seconds from gnawing on his jugular the way I see it.”

Timmy snarls at Jack and Jack lifts up the hose and holds his thumb over the mouth of it just so, spraying water over the both of them.

“Ack!”

“Goddammit, Jack!”

“Yeah, actually, I think you can both just cut that shit out because I’m not real partial to being third wheel right now.  Assholes.”  Jack steps into the bathtub and hoses the blood off of his arms and legs while the two waterlilies sputter and gripe and wring themselves out.  Jack smiles to himself, satisfied. 

It’s a really shallow and empty victory because not even a minute later – into sustained silence that would be terribly awkward if Jack happened to give a shit; who knows what’s going on with the tweedles behind his back – the hatch goes screeching open and a voice yells down.

“Jack!”

“Ugghhh.”  Jack throws down the hose and leaves it running before pulling on the shirt he left on the bed.  The fabric sticks to his stomach and his feet are muddy again in an instant.  Jack doesn’t bother with his shoes and heads off towards the hatch.

“I’m sorry,” Timmy says quietly.

“Yeah, I bet you are,” Jack says over whatever forgiveness the boy was gonna offer and then he leaves them both to be stupid by themselves.  Jack hopes they’re both dead when he comes back.

 

“Who is that?”

Jack gives a very unimpressed glance over to the security camera footage.  They’ve got the garage up on screen and Timmy and his pet sitting side by side on the bed.  Probably talking about something useless; there’s no audio feed so who the fuck knows. 

“Uh, that would be victim number-whatever that you threw down a few weeks ago,” Jack tells the dickhole in the stupid cloak who’s looking Very Unhappy.  “Can’t believe it took you losers this long to realize it.”

“Why,” Unhappy Asshole starts slowly, as if he’s talking to a child; the inside of Jack’s ribs are scorched with fury, “is he still alive?”

“Well, you see,” Jack, just as patronizing, “when a demon and a human decide they wanna make the magic happen, they make a deal and become very special friends with benefits ‘til death do they part.”  The twitch that flicks across this guy’s mouth is so worth the risk of being slapped with another shackling spell.  Jack would peel all these fuckers from their skins just so he could get under them.

“Timothy made a contract with the sacrifice,” Greasy Genius infers.

“Wow, congrats, you figured it out, let’s all slow clap it out for the big guy.”

“And when the sacrifice dies, the contract is null,” is the next intelligent thing out of his mouth.  Jack’s eyes flash and a righteous wickedness fills him up like it hasn’t in decades.  He grins, so sweet and charming.

“You got it, champ,” Jack tells him.  He might have to spit the truth to these assholes every time they ask him questions but, hey, it’s not his fault if the truth he gives them leads them to their own poor choices.  They go in there and try to kill the boy, they’re gonna die. 

That’s only gonna solve Jack’s problems.

“Did you only wanna play interrogation with me or is there something that actually needs doing?” Jack asks, folding his arms over his chest like he’s got somewhere better to be.  Anywhere but here is somewhere better to be; this place smells like burnt sage, grease sweat and basement-dwellers.

Beady eyes stare from under that velvet-lined hood like beetles shifting in the burrow of some pallid fungus. 

Mortals are putrid.

“Kill the sacrifice that Timothy has made a contract with.”

Jack laughs in his stupid face.

“Are you fucking kidding?” he says.  “God, I thought you assholes prided yourselves on how you know everything about demons.  We don’t go near contracts that don’t belong to us.  That’s a good way to delete your existence out of reality and, out of the interest of self-preservation, fuck no.”

There’s a scowl given and Jack rolls his eyes at it, though the shackling spell that demands he obey every order given is starting to heave into his bones like something molten, ready to melt the marrow out of them.

“Order retracted,” Fuckface McGee finally concedes.

“Yeah, I ain’t touchin’ that,” Jack reiterates.

“We’ll deal with it on our own.”

“Gee, how magnanimous of you.”

“Speak nothing of this to either of them.”

“Mum’s the word,” Jack agrees readily.

“You can go back now.”

Jack goes back. 

 

Later, when he thinks back on it, Timothy will blame the absolute clusterfuck of emotions he was experiencing for dulling his senses, for not realizing Jack was approaching.  And he’ll nod and make sure he knows how to keep it from happening in the future and be very level-headed about it.

Timothy blinks between the spaces of reality, leaving Rhys behind in the nest of plush toys to stand between him and Jack, lips pulled back, teeth bared.

“Whoa, easy, cupcake, I’m not here to crash your snuggle party,” Jack says , smirking at the defensive stance but looking 100% unthreatened by it.  “That guy is, though.” 

Timothy looks over Jack’s shoulder to where he’s gesturing to a man in a hooded cloak, stepping cautiously through the heaps of trash.  A cultist.  When had the hatch opened?  Timothy hadn’t even heard it.  Shit, he really needed to eat. 

A hard swallow and a few synapses firing properly later, Tim realized he’d probably get the chance to.  Right now.  There was no way the cultist was here to just introduce himself to Rhys and then be on his merry way.  Well, at least he wouldn’t be hungry anymore.  And he also wouldn’t have to worry about Rhys wanting to kiss him because killing this guy would certainly turn him off of that particular waste of life.  Tim sighs and loosens his stance and rubs his fingers against his nose and cheek.  He played at pretending he wasn’t a monster and got a few sweet smooches out of it.  That was pretty nice.  He could write about that and revisit it.

“You told them about Rhys?” Timothy asks Jack.

“Not like it was really a secret, babe,” Jack

“Stay behind me, Rhys,” Tim says over his shoulder when he hears another squeaking shift of stuffed animals.  Of course, Rhys takes that as a cue to come up right behind Timothy’s back.  An annoyed sort of rage statics up Timothy’s spine and is smothered almost instantly as it grew when Rhys touches his hand to Tim’s shoulder.

“God, I need to eat,” Tim mutters.  He’s getting berserk impulses.  Jack impulses.  The longer he goes hungry, the more of a danger he is to Rhys.  Though with those unsteady hands bracing gently against his shoulders and the sweet distraction of warmth it gives him, it’s easy to snuff out the rage. 

Jack glares at Rhys, lips sneering.

It’s a tad difficult to tell whether Timothy is annoyed or worried or genuinely peaceable with everything and just isn’t letting a flicker of anything show.  Though, Rhys thinks as he watches Timothy take another long inhale, usually the guy emotes pretty plainly.  The flatline expression isn’t comforting.  Which is an issue because Rhys could use a hand to hold.  More figuratively than literally but he sneaks his fingers out, walking them across Timothy’s leg to curl them around his palm and….  Ah, there.  A smile.  Warmth and a soft sigh and a grin that lingers and Rhys gives it right back to him.  Timothy squeezes his hand.

“What he’s talking about is basically a trade,” Timothy says as he draws his thumb back and forth along the back of Rhys’ hand.  They exchange soothing touches like one wave rolling in after another to skim along the shoreline.  “Our contract is very circumstantial: I protect and heal you only when you need it and as long as we are friends and you spend that bare minimum with me every day.”

Rhys nods.  Behind them somewhere, Jack is whistling (loudly, skillfully, forebodingly chipper) and rooting around his stockpile of whatever in the garage.  Rhys tries to ignore him but Timothy catches the twitch of his lip and chuckles at him before continuing.

“Your contract with Jack is more transactional.  The way it will work is if you want to do something using Jack’s powers, you’ll have to obey him at whatever cost he deems is fair exchange.”

“Trusting Jack with that kind of appraisal doesn’t sound smart,” Rhys says, his frown dug deep into his tone.  Since he has no one to blame but himself for this predicament.  It’s what he signed up for.

“That’s where debt building comes in,” Timothy says.  “Trust me, I studied this for years, it’s crazy fascinating stuff.  If Jack ends up asking you to do something beyond the value of your request, then he’s indebted to you through the contract. That debt transfers over to whatever you ask next, lessening the cost.  It also works the other way, though.  So if you ask for something and what he asks of you doesn’t match up to the value of that request, you’re going to have to keep obeying until it does.”

“Which is why…,” Rhys leads, the pieces starting to line up.

“Which is why I gotta get you doing lots of nice tricks for me, Rhysie,” Jack speaks over Timothy.   Rhys looks over his shoulder at Jack who’s come to crouch behind him, hovering and smirking all the while.

“Breaking all the shackling spells alone is going to be very costly,” Timothy says, leveling Jack with an unimpressed stare for a few seconds before turning back to Rhys, reaffirming the gentle hold on his hand.  Another sigh of that starlight sweeps through and Rhys feels safe, even with a monster literally breathing down his neck.  And giving him goosebumps.  And, boy, don’t those two sensations combined feel a lot like being horny?  Whoops.  Rhys blushes.

[Luckily, Timothy is still explaining things.] 

“Plus you might want to include contingencies like…killing everyone in the cult and destroying evidence that they even existed.  And those things are going to have their own costs.”

“So we’re gonna play Jackie-Says all night so I can make it happen, m’kay, pumpkin?” Jack patters his hands against Rhys’ shoulders and hops up to go fiddling around some more.  Whistling again.

“Literally minutes ago he was looking at me like I was dog shit and now he’s so goddamn delighted,” Rhys says to Timothy, whispering vehemently.  The way Timothy’s eyes dart over to Jack mean that Jack can definitely still hear but Rhys decides he doesn’t care.  “What gives?”

“He’s Jack,” Timothy says, shrugging.  Rhys glowers. 

“Thanks for revelation, Sherlock, what else you got for me?”

“Calm your tits, Watson, I’m not done yet.”  When Timothy grins, Rhys feels himself smiling back, despite how grumpiness has set in. (It’s still his own damn fault. He knew that from the start and accepted it but here he is now, resenting his own choices and being mad about proving himself right.)  “If I had to guess, I’d say he’s just happy to have someone to boss around.”

“Yeah, I guess that only works with you so much,” Rhys says, sniggering at the thought of Timothy being defiant and Jack throwing a tantrum like a playground bully.

And all of this is really nice to pad the anxiety that’s coiling up in Rhys’ gut over how in a handful of minutes, he’s probably going to lose his virginity.  Oh, boy, though, can he stall like the best of ‘em.  And so he does.

“Um, also, since we’re just filling in all the gaps right now,” Rhys says and reminds himself _not_ to look at the bed or the other bed or Jack, “why is

After Timothy snaps at him and they bicker for a while (two mouths full of snarling, sharp teeth very close to Rhys’ neck) Jack finally makes a noise of exasperation and stops rubbing his crotch against Rhys’ ass.  No contracts this time but – so Rhys isn’t trusting Jack to hold up his end for long – but at least Jack is over on his own bed and giving Rhys some breathing room.

“Everything I tell you,” Jack reminds them both.  “As soon as I say it.”

“We got it, jeez, shut up,” Timothy says, scooting around so he can sit upright again.  Rhys watches the pinkish flush wash out his freckles and tries to get his heartbeat out of his ears.

“Rhys, get naked,” Jack says and Rhys frowns at him.  Already, that icky feeling is starting to build at the back of his throat but Rhys grits his teeth around it long enough for Jack to sneer back at him and say, “Better yet, ask Timmy to strip you.  Ask him real nicely, m’kay?  Use the magic word.”

Next to him, Timothy is making sputtering, offended noises on Rhys’ behalf.  Still trying to put together the words, Rhys barely begins to open his mouth before Jack says,

“Do this, do this, say, ‘Will you please make me nakie?’”  and then literally falls over laughing so hard.  Rhys feels his whole life burn scarlet and Timothy buries his face in his hands. It’s Rhys’ own damn fault. He knew that from the start and accepted it but here he is now, resenting his own choices and being mad about proving himself right.

Rhys stares at a spot over Timothy’s shoulder and digs his blunted, dirty nails into his palms and mutters, “Will you please make me nakie?”

This is the funniest thing in the goddamn universe, apparently. 

Rhys has one moment of utter resentment, soundtrack provided by Jack’s howling amusement, before the obedience rewards him.  And then he doesn’t give a shit anymore.  He closes his eyes and sighs out the anger and his shoulders roll the embarrassment off.  Timothy peeks through the split in his fingers and Jack, thankfully, has shut the fuck up.  Too bad that shame won’t stick around when merely following through with these commands gives Rhys the crown to rule the cosmos. 

Only quietly, in a muffled flutter of a thought does Rhys think that at some point, this might turn into an issue.

“Well, get on with it, Tim Tams, the boy asked you nice and everything,” Jack says.

“Are you okay?” Timothy asks Rhys, after letting his hands fall away and kneeling up to come closer.  Rhys feels dizzy with the amount of emotional whiplash and just laughs, high and manic.

“Haha, maybe?” he says, and watches Timothy’s hands undoing the buttons of his shirt.  “I kinda feel like I’m gonna barf.”  Timothy stops immediately. “In a good way?  Um, can you please make me shut up.”

Timothy smiles, his eyes soft with compassion and he leans in until their noses nudge together.  He leaves off the buttons to hold Rhys’ wringing hands and they trade strokes of their fingertips like one wave rolling in after another to skim along the shoreline.

“Beg him, morsel,” Jack growls, offside, impatient. 

“Please,” Rhys says.  It’s not even that hard to acquiesce this time.  He could be begging Timothy for anything.  “Please.”  For more touches, for a kiss, for this first time to go just like he always wanted. “ _Please,_ Timothy….”  For everything to stop, maybe.  For this to just be a weird erotic nightmare that he can wake up from. 

The gratifying swell of fire in syncopated harmony with the aurora-glow gentleness of Timothy’s steady hands translate pretty well to enthusiastic arousal and Rhys decides he’s going to go along with that. 

“You can say if you don’t want this,” Timothy tells Rhys.  His breath is warm against Rhys’ cheek and his fingers slide along Rhys’ forearms, giving him goosebumps.   He’s blushing really hard, lips getting caught-and-pulled against his teeth, nervously, again and again.  Rhys burns for him and it has nothing to do with the contract.

“It’s okay,” Rhys says.  Timothy is already shaking his head and Rhys wants to laugh and say, ‘yeah, actually, you’re right,’ but at the same time….  At the same time, Timothy is still holding up this banner in the midst of a battle that’s already been lost.  He’s there, waiting, ignoring the storm raging at the horizon so he can be safe harbor for Rhys’ shipwreck of a life.  “It’s you,” Rhys tries to explain.  He reaches to hold Timothy’s face between his hands and smiles for him.  “I’m happy it’s you.”

“Ain’t that sweet,” Jack deadpans in the background, thunder rolling.

“I’ll always be good to you,” Timothy promises and Rhys might be crying but he’s not gonna think about it.  He closes his eyes and Timothy finishes off the buttons before pushing the shirt gently from his shoulders.  Rhys tips back onto the mattress and lifts up his hips so Timothy can roll his dusty, torn-up slacks over his knees. 

“God, you are like a million miles of leg,” Jack says.  Rhys turns his head to look at him and Jack’s laying on his side on his bed, watching the two of them with less amusement now, more focused fascination.  Mostly on Rhys’ legs.

“Thank you?” Rhys says.  His eyes still feel kinda wet.  Jack grins at him and says nothing. 

Timothy’s fingers hook under the waistband of Rhys’ underwear and Rhys just plants his feet in the mattress and lifts his hips again.  Timothy tugs.

“Wow, this ain’t doing anything for ya, huh, kid?”  Noting Rhys’ flaccidness, undoubtedly.  Rhys groans, embarrassed, annoyed.

“You’re not exactly doing yourself any favors, Jack,” Timothy says. [He does Rhys a great favor] by climbing over him, hiding his nakedness from Jack, keeping close enough that the occasional contact makes peace weave through his knotted nerves.  Rhys shudders on every exhale.  “”

Will that even work?  Rhys grips the worn fabric of Timothy’s t-shirt, his face covered by the drape of his leather jacket.  He takes a deep breath.

“Don’t get me wrong, Jack,” he says, pulling back the curtain of Timothy’s jacket.  “I was under the impression that

“Easy enough,” Jack says.  “Rhys, help Timmy get undressed.”

Rhys goes to sit up but Timothy’s arms just wrap around him, a tide of bliss washing through him, and help get him upright again. 

“Kiss him a little.”

That’s easy.  Rhys puts little pecks against Timothy’s cheeks while he pushes the jacket off of him and skims his hands up underneath the t-shirt.  Already that concert of burn-and-glow is making a

 

Rhys

Frozen like this, Timothy looks like the subject of a Renaissance portrait.  Reclined, the sharp light-and-shade of the Hellhole providing the perfect _chiaroscuro_ for his figure.  His face is one of those carefully-composed frowns, lips slightly parted, two deep lines forming between his eyebrows in a furrow.  Best part is his cheeks: they’re pink-flushed, which washes out all of his freckles and Rhys finds it all so enchanting that for the longest time, he doesn’t grasp what’s happened.

Until Jack snaps at him.

“Hey!”

And that breaks the spell.  Only not really. 

Rhys turns his head and scowls at Jack, who’s standing on the floor next to the bed with his arms folded over his chest.

“What?” Rhys snaps right back.

“What the fuck did you do?”

“The hell are you talking about?”

Jack throws his arms up and makes wild, flailing gestures at everything in the immediate area.

“Did you not notice how time is fucking stuck?  You were making moony eyes at Timmy there and didn’t realize that he’s not _breathing_?”

Rhys’s gasp has less to do with time being stopped and more of an instinctual recoil from the idea of Timothy not breathing, and all that it implies.  He whips back around to look at Timothy, fear stuttering his heart, and surely, Timothy isn’t breathing at all. 

But he’s not dead.  If he were dead, he wouldn’t be able to prop himself up on one hand like that, and his knees wouldn’t be holding that bent-and-open position.  Gravity isn’t affecting him.

“What in the world…,” Rhys mutters, leaning forwards and very cautiously putting his hand against the side of Timothy’s neck.  He’s warm.  The sweet endorphin-flood of their usual touches is amiss; Rhys has nothing but body heat between their contact.  That sits more bitterly in his mouth than anything else.  Feels wrong.

“So, I’ll ask again,” Jack says behind Rhys, “what did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Rhys says.  “I’m human, I don’t have time-stopping powers.  If anything, I should be asking what _you_ did.”

“Didn’t do a damn thing, kiddo,” Jack says.

“Well then I guess reality just decided to break on its own.  Hurray.”

Rhys scoots a little closer to sit in the bit of space between Timothy’s bare feet.  It’d be a more enthusiastic hurray if the universe decided to break and let Timothy come along with Rhys instead of Jack. 

Which gives Rhys a thought.

“Maybe it’s our contract,” he says, unheard beneath Jack’s rant because, hey, he was mouthing off this entire time.

“Huh?”

“If time stopped just for the two of us then wouldn’t it make sense that it’s because of our contract?” Rhys theorizes.

“Probably because I told you to [get busy getting naked] and you mouthed off and didn’t do it,” Jack sneers at him.  Rhys rolls his eyes.  “It’s probably just the quiet before the storm hits and we both get blown to space dust because you couldn’t keep your end of the bargain.”

“I don’t want to lose my virginity in this garbage pit, Jack,” Rhys tells him.  Jack opens his mouth to just [snap] back but Rhys keeps going.  “You’re gorgeous, okay?”  Boy, if that isn’t a way to get Jack to shut up.  Rhys grins at [how surprised his face is.]  “You’re really crazy hot and I definitely like the idea of you bossing me around in bed, alright, it does the exact opposite of turn me off.”

“Then what’s the goddamn holdup, huh?” Jack says.  He takes a sliding step in close and reaches his hands out to brace against Rhys’ shins, one of his knees coming up onto the bed.  “I was all ready to do that.”

“Not _here_ ,” Rhys says firmly.  “Not like this.  It smells down here, okay?  There’s roaches.  There’s a crazy cult above our heads that might drop down and decide to try to kill or maim or whatever me at any moment.”

 

Rhys

This is probably the best sandwich that Rhys has ever experienced in his life. It’s not even the proper kind of sandwich.  The three of them are the sandwich and Rhys is the shivery, flushed filling to it, with his arms tangled in the shirt that got push-pulled off of his shoulders, held in a knot by Jack, who he can _feel_ smirking against his neck while Timothy thumbs at Rhys’ nipples with this expression on his face like if he releases his bottom lip from the clamp of his teeth, he might not be able to keep his mouth off of Rhys. 

“Best sandwich ever,” Rhys murmurs behind another shudder. His shoulders are starting to get sore but _who cares_.

“I’ll say,” Jack says.  His lips are all hot against Rhys’ neck.  “Go on, tell him what else you want.”

Rhys swallows back the thick mouthful of saliva he’s saved up under his tongue and doesn’t take any longer than that to say, “Please use your mouth, Timothy, please, oh, god.”  Fire scorches Rhys through, chasing after what gentility Timothy has already left behind.  Together like this, each contract gratified in tandem, the results are making Rhys’ cock throb in his underwear.  He gasps like he can’t breathe.

“You sure?” Timothy asks.  His hands grip steadily around Rhys’ rattling ribs.  He keeps double-checking, making sure Rhys _really_ wants everything he’s asking for.  That it’s not just Jack using him as a mouthpiece. Honestly, it’s going to give Rhys a begging kink in the next three minutes if he keeps it up and, haha, that doesn’t actually sound too bad, oops, holy crap, Rhys is learning _so many_ things about himself today.

“Yes, yes, _please_ ,” is all he says.  Jack growls against the back of Rhys’ neck and he feels the shove of his cock against his ass again.  Dizzy….  Rhys can’t help but imagine his clothes being torn to literal shreds in the next minutes and he sighs, “Oh…,” right as Timothy’s lips close around a nipple and start sucking.

There’s a bit of a shift and Jack, thankfully, tugs Rhys’ shirt the rest of the way off which frees Rhys to put his arms around Timothy’s head and cradle him, hands shaking, while the very acute sensation of his nipple being plucked and played with between teeth and tongue takes focus.  Strong hands curls around Rhys’ hips and Jack is there again, mouth at his neck, smiling against that tender spot beneath Rhys’ jaw and spilling that sweet, heady perfume into his senses.

Though if the goal of that scent is to seduce then Rhys is a hot second away from telling Jack to pack it in because it’s job’s already been done.  Here he is, resigning his rationality to a couple of demons who look almost exactly the same but couldn’t be more different.  It’s hard to focus on the feeling of Jack’s teeth touching his neck – not biting, not even scraping, but present – when Timothy is kissing from one nipple to the other, making noises like a starved man who’s been offered the first ripe fruits of the harvest.  His freckles are washed out from the pink of his cheeks and every now and then, he glances up to look at Rhys and then looks down or closes his eyes again and the tops of his ears get even redder.

It’s so precious and erotic that Rhys thinks he might actually explode.  Maybe just in his pants, but explosion is a real option here.

“So tell me, cupcake,” Jack is murmuring all rough and ravenous in Rhys’ ear, “you the kinda guy who likes to fuck or be fucked?”

“Oh god, I don’t know,” Rhys answers immediately, because he really doesn’t.  Maybe only in part because he’s distracted by Timothy’s sweet lips and how soft his hair feels against Rhys’ arms.  “Um, they both sound _great_.”

Rhys gasps as obedience meets with touch. (Wasn’t it _platonic_ expressions of affection? In what universe does one man sucking another man’s nipples constitute platonic? Rhys might have to sit down with Timothy later and ask him some questions.)  The increasingly familiar potency of the two contracts fulfilled at once send full-bodied shivers down every vertebra like a cascade of lightning.  Timothy moans.  Jack growls and his grip tugs Rhys back towards him.  Yeah, and the feeling of Jack’s dick, hard in his jeans, pushing up against Rhys’ ass is getting its own sense of familiarity.  As in, Rhys is finding the intrusion less an unwelcome surprise.  Now just a surprise.  Perhaps a thrilling one….

“Well, I know exactly what I wanna do with you,” Jack murmurs.  Rather than further detailing those desires, Jack hooks his chin over Rhys’ shoulder and laughs.  “Damn, Timmy, look at you go.  This a kink of yours you never told me about?”

 

Timothy says that the contracts don’t work that way.  That Jack can bust through the roof just fine on his own, right now, shackling spells be damned, and Rhys wouldn’t have to do anything but say he wants to go home.

Rhys frowns at Jack and says he wants to go home.

Jack says,

“Fine, but you owe me a threesome.”

So, apparently, Rhys owes Jack a threesome.

“I assume that you’re gonna be the other part of that threesome?” Rhys asks Timothy as Jack chugs his scotch and make unnecessary noises (sighs, growls, random man-gruntings that are probably psyching himself up for a massacre).  Timothy holds Rhys’ hand without Rhys having to ask for it.

“I don’t think he has anyone else he’d like to stick his dick in readily available,” Timothy says.  Should that be a comforting thought?  Maybe?  Rhys is doing a lot of life-evaluation that probably won’t see any resolution until he has open sky over his head again.  “Jack, I’m gonna let you handle this one on your own.  I’m staying with Rhys.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Jack says.  He doesn’t bother putting on a shirt or shoes.  He smashes his empty bottle of scotch against the bathtub as if it’s the maiden voyage of some newly christened ship.  “Don’t wait for me to get back; I’m burnin’ the place down when I’m done.”

And he jumps. 

Sometimes Jack makes these movements that reveal just how obvious it is that he’s not human.  He vaults up the ceiling and though is shines a fierce violet – like a warning – his hands, his feet, they glow right back.  Something magical – Rhys feels monumental and violent – braces Jack’s movement and he punches through the ceiling.  Its spell circles shatter.  Next to him, Timothy breathes like he hasn’t done so in years without a vice around his chest.  Light comes spilling in, muting the neon glows.  Jack’s shadow vanishes into the fluorescent beams. 

“You wanna make a bet?” Rhys murmurs. Timothy holds his hand tighter.

“Thirty minutes,” he says.

“Fifteen,” Rhys challenges him.

“I feel like betting against you is useless now that you can literally have anything you could possibly want,” Timothy says.  Rhys laughs because the absurdity of it all is still catching up with him and when Timothy turns to grin at him, he can feel the aurora glow of how they’re touching each other envelop him: a soothing wave over the scorch that Jack’s [conviction] left behind.

“We should pack your stuff,” Rhys suggests, looking over at the stack of notebooks and creased paperbacks on Timothy’s lonely folding chair.  “Think we could find a duffel bag or something?”

“I kinda want to leave everything,” Timothy admits with a sigh and then tugs Rhys close.  “I’d love to just never think about this again for the rest of my more or less immortal existence.”

“Take your journals,” Rhys says.  “I wanna read them some more.  Transcribe them.  Make it into a book and sell it, I bet people will love it.”

“Purely fictional,” Timothy mutters, grinning.

“Who’d believe the truth?”

There’s an old, ratty backpack that they shake the sawdust and bugs out of to pack the notebooks in.  Rhys offers to wear it, just in case Timothy needs to be unhindered to protect him.  Far away, the rumble of something exploding shakes the rafters and Timothy sighs, a light grin coming to rest on his lips.

“Let’s go before he makes the roof fall down on us.”

 

Rhys, thankfully, does _not_ puke on Timothy when Timothy grabs him and they vault up through the hole in the ceiling with a single bound.  He doesn’t but it seems like a really good idea for a handful of seconds while Rhys is on his hands and knees on the dirty hallway floor, blinking in the dark and noticing faraway sounds that might or might not be screaming.

“Gonna be okay?” Timothy asks, crouching next to Rhys and helping him take off the backpack.

“Scared of heights,” Rhys explains.  “Very.”

Timothy rubs between Rhys’ shoulders with the sort of patience that they probably can’t afford to dwell in right now.  Rhys pinches his eyes shut and swallows hard before hoisting the backpack into its place again.  Timothy helps him stand.

“Let’s just go,” Rhys says, gripping Timothy’s hand when he begins to let go.  “I want to go home.  I want to shower.  I want to sleep.  I want to pay Jack what I owe him before I barf up a lung in retribution.”

“Home sounds nice,” Timothy says as he leads them along the hallway.  The place is barren and dark with doors lining one side.  Kinda like a school. “Think there’s enough room for me at your home?”

“Bed’s big enough,” Rhys says lightly and doesn’t look at Timothy.  “Jack can have the couch.”

“It’ll be wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am for him,” Timothy says and Rhys can hear his gentle laughter and feel him smiling without even looking.  “I bet you.”

“We’ve already got one bet going.”

“I’ll win this one.  He won’t stay.”

“But what if I want stuff,” Rhys mutters.  He does want stuff.  He already has a list in his head going of all of the things he’s going to ask Jack to help him get.  Starting with a new place to live. And maybe a bigger bed.

“He’ll be back, just,” Timothy cuts himself off to sigh and tug at Rhys’ hand to get his attention.  “Home first, okay?  Just home.”

Rhys smiles at Timothy and nods. 

He’ll have the rest of his life to fill his circumstances with every greedy thing he could possibly want.  Home is what he really _needs_ right now.   

 

“Am I invited to this at all?” Timothy says from where he’s standing in the doorway, dressed in his old, dirty clothes again, looking damp and flushed and trying not to be jealous.  Jack _thinks_ that’s what the look on his face means. 

“Timothy,” Rhys calls to him and Timmy’s eyes instantly lock on Rhys over Jack’s shoulder.  That’s it, that’s all he needs.  The fucking bed isn’t big enough for all three of them but, by god, Timmy doesn’t even look like he gives a shit.  He climbs up and squeezes in and holds Rhys’ shaking hands, blissed-out dreaminess smearing over both their features in turn. 

“There’s no way this is gonna work,” Jack says, despite continually molesting Rhys through his clothes, enjoying the sight of the little wet spot on the front of his pants getting bigger.  “I hate this fucking bed.”

“How soon could you get me a bigger one?” Rhys asks, looking at Jack and rolling his hips to get him to focus.  Jack lets go instead, mostly because Timmy keeps budging into his space like a greedy little brat.  Which is just fine with Jack; 

 

Jack lets Rhys rest his head in his lap while Timothy pushes Rhys’ knees up to his chest and gives him his first rimjob.  It’s clear from the casual and malicious way that Jack is asking questions to Rhys that he’s trying to distract him.  Or just be an ass, that’s an equally likely possibility.  Tim fingers his own cum out of Rhys and laps it up, hot-faced, and Jack says, “You should find the biggest fuck-off mansion in the city and tell me you want it,” as he twiddles strands of Rhys’ hair through his fingers.

“Haaahh!” Rhys answers. “O-oh…oh, man.  I don’t…ah-a-ah! I don’t want a,” the sound of him swallowing is loud, “a mansion.”

“Then a penthouse condo,” Jack offers.  “Somethin’ with a lot of windows.  What I’m saying is that your apartment is a worse shithole than the one I was trapped in.”

Tim rolls his eyes and presses his lips and tongue back to Rhys’ hole, licking at him with his hands squeezing gently at the bottoms of Rhys’ thighs.  Jack starts listing off all of the expensive, useless shit that Rhys should fill his life with and Rhys is definitely more intent of getting another orgasm than he is taking Jack’s suggestions to heart.

Jack’s hands curve

 


End file.
